Matthew Rasmussen's journal of journals on various topics of interest, published here, there or somewhere since 1999.
The management is not responsible for lost or stolen towel cards. Should your towel card be lost or stolen, you will no longer have access to towels.
File Under: /film/screenwriting
"In the current storyline, there's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance . . . As an executive producer as well as a writer, I've sometimes had to insist that my writers make changes that they did not want to make, often loudly so. They were sure I was wrong. Mostly I was right. Sometimes I was wrong. But whoever sits in the editor's chair, or the executive producer's chair, wears the pointy hat of authority, and as Dave Sim once noted, you can't argue with a pointy hat.
"So at the end of the day, all one can do is try to do the best one can with the notes one is given, and try to execute them in a professional way -- because who knows, the other guy may be right . . . ."
-- J. Michael Straczynski
>HP: 0
File Under: /film/screenwriting
Previously posted is a poem for the third draft of my feature screenplay "Windy City." Draft two borrows from a song by VNV Nation, but I thought it best to write something of my own as a backup. Here are the lyrics as they appear in situ:
A gust carries some equipment away and tugs at the cable. There is a loud SNAP. The workman turns his lamp away from the locks, toward the cable and finds -- a slowly lengthening CRACK.
WORKMAN
CABLEFALL! CABLEFALL!
The cable SNAPS. Half of it CRASHES across the trolley tracks, wiping them away like chalk marks. The other half SLAMS back into the building. The upper floor windows EXPLODE, raining big chunks of plastic on the old workman and his crew.
WORKMAN
DOWN! EVERYONE DOWN!
INT. HOTEL - LOBBY - EARLY MORNING
A low, distant BOOM. The power flickers. Nadine and her sister Ashur are crammed onto a cot in the dark lobby with the other refugees. The building GROANS in the wind. Ashur is too frightened to sleep. Nadine begins to stroke her hair.
NADINE
(sings)
Morning clouds in disarray/
Bright and cold, this is your day/
Ten points off the rising sun/
Tell me why I feel this way?
Tell me what you've been and done/
Silhouette in solid space/
Future's half-forgotten face/
Stillness grudgingly withdrawn/
Far off engines mutter dawn/
Slow to wake and slow to thaw/
You'd become my paragon/
Hope that time could not withdraw/
Gone too long, returned too soon/
Stowed and moored by afternoon/
Scrambling spotters, busy clerks/
'Til this evening's fireworks/
Dancing through the final song/
Rubbing hair and other perks/
Heart ungimbaled, stomach wrong/
Ship returning, fortunes won/
Voyage ended, and begun/
Ashur sleeps.
>HP: 1
>In the context of the entire Windy City script, this adds a dimension of personal reality to Nadene and to this specific scene. Beautiful.
File Under: /film/screenwriting
..-. --- .-. .. .-. .- --
Morning clouds in disarray
Bright and cold, this is your day
Ten points off the rising sun
Tell me why I feel this way?
Tell me what you've been and done
Silhouette in solid space
Future's half-forgotten face
Stillness grudgingly withdrawn
Far off engines mutter dawn
Slow to wake and slow to thaw
You'd become my paragon
Hope that time could not withdraw
Gone too long, returned too soon
Stowed and moored by afternoon
Scrambling spotters, busy clerks
'Til this evening's fireworks
Dancing through the final song
Rubbing hair and other perks
Heart ungimbaled, stomach wrong
Ship returning, fortunes won
Voyage ended, and begun
>HP: 0
File Under: /film/screenwriting
My first feature screenplay, "Windy City," has been entered into the 2007 ASA International Screenplay Competition. The quarterfinalists will be announced by February 28, 2008, with the semifinalists coming out April 30 and the final winners being announced at the awards ceremony at the end of September, 2008.
As much as I dread (and typically fail) at self-promotion, it's nice to be back on the contest scene. Æsop's Council of Mice was my last animated film to play the film festival circuit, following the relative success of my award-winning debut Marboxian. Owing mainly to financial difficulties, I wasn't able to do much with Mice, and I've had to focus on making a living since.
It's been mentioned a few times here, but maybe it's time to introduce the thing. Windy City is a classic city mouse/country mouse story written by someone who's been both. It has airships and fantastic cities, natural and manmade disasters, and a whole laundry list of other exciting things. But that's not why you'll fall in love with it. The real movie is about a boy from the valley and a senator's daughter from the city -- Dan Assurbani and Nineve Sherrib -- and how their lives meet and grow more and more complicated.
Windy City started life as a treatment six or seven years ago. At about this time last year, I dusted it off and set about cleaning it up. Somehow the treatment became a full first draft by April, and I had some friends with a bit of theatre experience over to do a cold readthrough. I sat on the lessons I learned from hearing it out loud, and the remaining issues I had with it, picked at it for the next few months as life got complicated again, and finally -- in four days at a friend's house in coastal Maine -- burned through to a second draft in late August.
It's been an interesting year. Wish Windy City luck.
>HP: 0
File Under: /film/screenwriting
From a description in Christopher M. Finan's "From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America"
The Matewan "Massacre" would make an interesting, if challenging film. Starts out with a classic Western-style showdown. Escalates to open warfare.
"Passengers on the Norfolk and Western trains went through the battle zone crouching on the floors of the cars while glass crashed overhead."
OUTSIDE
>HP: 0
File Under: /film/screenwriting
A device I find useful when facing screenwriter's block is to focus on what each character needs in a scene.
There is a school of screenwriting that would have us believe that all scenes are defined by what the characters want, but I disagree. I've spent many enjoyable moments with friends not particularly needing or wanting anything, and that's what screenwriting basically is -- voyeurism. Overemphasis on need-driven scenemaking destroys spontaneity and overloads the script with tension.
Compare the following problem scene from the first and second draft of "Windy City."
First draft:
EXT. ESTER'S FLAT - NIGHT
DAN
Why didn't you stop?
NINEVE
Well it's not that I didn't like
dance, it was just the girls there.
But, being a senator's daughter,
you've got to have a certain amount
of...
She pauses at the doorknob, folds her arm formally behind her.
NINEVE
(cont.)
Poise. Charm. And most
importantly --
They enter.
INT. ESTER'S FLAT, CONT.
PAUL
...There's just NO WAY!
Nineve and Dan are startled. The adults stands around the kitchen table. Sherrib and Tigres look bitter, Ester and Gyllian defiant. Paul is angry. We've never seen Paul angry.
SAUL
(from the corner)
I can stay, whatever good THAT'LL
do...
TIGRES
Saul...
PAUL
(to Dan and Nineve)
They cut off our funding this
afternoon, the senate. We can't
afford to stay.
DAN
They can... just... do that?
SHERRIB
(to Nineve)
They cut room and board stipends.
Most of us don't use them, but the
valley delegates need them.
NINEVE
...Because they live at the hotel?
SHERRIB
Right.
PAUL
They called a special session this
afternoon. While we were out
watching the airship with everyone
else.
GYLLIAN
Little sneaks.
SAUL
All this money, you'd think I could
buy some brains...
TIGRES
(quietly)
Stop it.
PAUL
Mrs. Hadden has agreed to let us
stay here. Saul's staying on
at the hotel. Hana, Hale and
Tudaya have already made plans to
go back.
ESTER
You'll have to sweep up the dust
and flower petals, but it'll be
nice to have someone living in
the spare rooms again.
DAN
We don't have to go home?
PAUL
(surprised)
No, not yet. Not us anyway.
Second draft:
INT. SENATE - HIGH HALLWAY, CONT.
DAN
Then why didn't you stop?
NINEVE
Well it's not that I didn't like
dance, it was just the girls there.
But, being a senator's daughter,
you've got to have a certain amount
of . . .
Nineve stops at the end of the hallway, folding her arm formally behind her.
NINEVE
(cont.)
Poise. Charm. And most
importantly --
INT. SENATE - LIGHT TOWER, CONT.
PAUL
(angrily)
Well I DIDN'T!
Nineve and Dan start. Paul looks ANGRY -- we've never seen Paul angry. Sherrib, Saul and Tigres are with him, along with the other three valley delegates -- HANA, HALE and TUDIYA -- surrounded by telegraphs and windows.
TUDIYA
You're taking this far too
personally, Assurbani. No one was
expecting us to succeed.
SAUL
I'm sorry, Paul. I ran down there
as soon as I heard about it, but
there wasn't much I could do.
PAUL
You could've done something! Talk,
waste time. . . ANYTHING!
SAUL
When pop's money doesn't solve the
problem, I'm pretty useless. You
know that.
TIGRES
Stop it.
PAUL
Why didn't you at least -- ?
TIGRES
Stop it both of you! Ester?
ESTER
Paul and Dan can stay as long as
they need to with me. I have more
than enough room. We need to put
this in the proper frame of mind.
It's a setback, surely, but only
that.
ASSURBANI
Ester's right. Ester's always
right. We're still operative.
We've got to look for a way ahead.
HALE
You're wasting your time! Honestly,
I appreciate all that you've done
for us, Senator Sherrib. . .
PAUL
We still have funds for the hotel
through Friday. You can at least
help out until then.
HANA
Paul, let it go. It's done.
TUDIYA
No one was expecting us to succeed.
PAUL
Well I was! Dan, Nineve, come in.
They are still standing in the doorway.
PAUL
(cont.)
They voted to cut off our funding,
the Senate. The money they give us
for the hotel. Saul can afford to
stay. Dan, you and I are invited to
stay with Ester. Hana and Hale want
to go back tomorrow. Tudiya, you
can stay for a couple weeks, can't
you?
TUDIYA
I'm afraid I'll be going back as
well.
PAUL
(to Dan)
So our party is somewhat diminished.
DAN
But we don't have to go back?
PAUL
No. Not yet.
SHERRIB
They very quietly called a special
session this afternoon to vote on it.
NINEVE
How did they get enough people?
SHERRIB
Don't know. Everyone who's a
reliable vote for Chairman Khorsa
was there. I think they've been
planning this for a while.
PAUL
We were out watching the airship
with everyone else.
Is the scene better? Who knows, but I'm happier with it. It satisfies my need.
(In case you're interested, I'm of the Jim Cameron school of screenwriting: "Just describe the movie.")
>HP: 0
Return to SpaceToast.net